SOCHI, Russia—The most carefully guarded sporting equipment in the Winter Olympics lies behind the door of a sealed-off corridor in a stadium near the upper reaches of the Caucasus Mountains. It is monitored at all hours by security guards who open the door only for its owners. And even then, they need personalized keys to retrieve it from their lockers. For biathletes, the security measures are just one more reminder: It isn't easy getting your equipment around the Olympics when your equipment includes a .22-caliber rifle.

Only the biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing with target shooting, requires athletes to carry firearms on their backs. And while many countries allow biathletes to take their rifles back to their hotel rooms, Russia has stricter rules.

When biathletes arrived in Sochi, their rifles were taken off their planes and delivered directly to the biathlon venue, which is the only place they can access them. Biathletes must sign out their rifles when they arrive and sign them back in before they leave. Every box of ammunition must also be signed out and accounted for.

The measures are similar to those used at previous Olympics, and Russia isn't the only country with such tight controls. But it is among the strictest. "There aren't a lot of other countries like that," said U.S. biathlete Sara Studebaker.

For American biathletes in particular, it represents a stark change from what they are accustomed to at home.

WSJ's Reed Albergotti takes a shot at the biathlon, an Olympic sport that combines cross-country skiing and shooting targets with a rifle, in the latest installment of the WSJ series, "The Olympics: How Hard Can it Be?"

"In the U.S., for a biathlon rifle, it's really pretty simple," Team USA's Leif Nordgren said. "To be honest, no one really seems to care too much. When you're done with training, you throw your rifle into the back of the car and bring it into the house."

There are reasons biathletes like to take their rifles home or back to a hotel. Away from the mountain, many of them hang sheets of paper with five black dots on bedroom or living room walls, which mimics the targets in a race. They use them for a training method called dry firing, in which they aim at the dots with their rifles unloaded and pull the trigger.

Before a typical race day, they can do this casually—before bed the previous night or just after breakfast, for instance. But at the Olympics, the security measures bring those routines to a halt once biathletes step out of the competition venue. "You just kind of adjust your schedule," said U.S. biathlete Lanny Barnes.

Some biathletes get a little apprehensive about leaving their rifles in the care of strangers, whether it's at the Olympics or at an airport. While the size of the rifles is standard, the stocks are highly customized to fit biathletes' bodies. They can cost several thousand dollars, and biathletes tend to keep the same ones for several years. Some even nickname their rifles.

"It's a sport that requires you to hit something the size of an Oreo cookie at 50 yards while you're at maximum physical exertion," Team USA's Lowell Bailey said. "You need a rifle that fits you absolutely perfectly."

With their rifles on lockdown at the mountain, there is little for biathletes to worry about. But U.S. biathletes say there have been occasional travel issues. An airline briefly lost their rifles while returning from a race in Geneva in December, delaying their delivery for a week. As a result, some separation anxiety lingers.

"We have a very interesting relationship with our rifles," Studebaker said. "It always makes us nervous when we're separated from them."

This "Feel Good" rule is without any real merit. More damage could be done by a hockey player with a skate in one hand and his stick in the other... than with a single shot .22 rifle.

I fear that if I mentioned what a stiff thrust with a ski pole could do, a bigger and deeper hole than a .22 long rifle, those would certainly be taken away leaving them with virtually no gear but their hat & gloves. But wait, they could conceal their identities with those... they should be held too.

"American biathletes are finding that it isn't easy getting their equipment—in this case a .22-caliber rifle—around the Olympics due to the strict rules in Russia."

Hasn't King Obama outlawed weapons in the United States? I thought he did that a few weeks ago when he suspended habeas corpus, outlawed free speech, held laws in suspense and declared the House and Senate are in recess forever? Oh, well it was nice when we had a President and not a Dictator.

Russia is one of many countries that adopted the America democrat party ideology and platform and so has become a tryannized despotic failed state. Whenever, and where ever democrats worm their way into power, they eat out the host country and leave it like a dried up shell of an insect in a spider's web.

America's ruling class, like that of Russia, fears the images of the Romanovs after the people's revolt which is solely why they both want a disarmed populace. Both groups delight in slaughtering large numbers of people, or letting them die, or aborting them before birth because the lives of other persons annoy them. Their decrees are prefaced with fake concern "for the kids" which mask their real intent to turn their citizens into subjects who can be pushed around and extorted without consequences.

Both Russia and America have immensely wealthy office holders, made so by their theft in office of the earnings of their subjects. These corrupt devils then look down on their subjects and demand the surrender of freedoms and property, much like Dianne Feinstein sits in our senate after having to complete a 34 page financial disclosure form which lists, among other things, the various ventures of her billionaire husband Richard Blume who gets lucrative Federal contracts because of his wife's government connections. What public "servant" needs a 34 page financial disclosure form? Shouldn't she have to give up enough of her property and money so that her remaining ventures would fill only 5 pages? Five pages is enough for anyone. A 34 page form was not intended for the streets of America, but for the cut throat arena of multinational corporate boardrooms where the casualties are high.

Russia could save a few bucks on their Ring of Steel just by letting these guys keep their guns. Chechen terrorist laughs at .22 LR? Lets see how hard they laugh when they get one in the head from down the block.

The biathlon looks like a fun event. You need good cardio conditioning and strength for the cross country skiiing. Then, you have to calm yourself down enough to hit five targets with a rifle, or ski a penalty lap. Looks like fun. Keeping those guns, i.e. 22"s, that belong to the athletes in a safe spot and under control would be challenging, but should have been defined way in advance for all to follow.

Lots of gun control discussion on this site. Was interesting a few weeks back when the national media was pushing stories of anti terrorism work for the Super Bowl. There segments would typically start showing law enforcement, either local or federal, with pistols on hip and, in some cases, holding what I would call military style semi automitc rifles. They would zoom in on the guns indicating the amount of firepower being brought to bear for this event. These were guns........lots of them, being used for protection. So, if it's ok for all these people to be carrying all this different types of firearms around in the name of protecting the citizenry, why is it so bad for the citizenry to have access to firearms as well for protection? Fair is fair....

@Jamilla Graves, looking at your previous and present posts, you have got to be one of the stupidest people to ever post anything on any WSJ blog sight that I have ever read , and believe me that is saying a lot.

It is telling how much Right Wingers prefer fantasy to facts. Most gun violence in the U.S. is from suicide. When homicides occur the shooter and victim are usually family, friends and acquaintances. Everyone should know this general information.

Well as soon as the powers that be finish turning the U.S. into another communist paradise we can have these strict gun laws too. Unfortunately that might not be good considering the fact that Russia has a higher murder rate than the U.S. This is in spite of...or more likely because of...their restrictive gun laws.

Here is a headline for you. 100 million lawful gun owners in the U.S. did not shoot anyone today.

The answer to your question is that your premise is wrong. There are no contradictions in life. When you encounter a contradiction it means your premise is incorrect.

In this case your premise is that our government really wants to protect us and because of this concern doesn't want us to harm ourselves with our guns. This is wrong. Our government fears for itself and it fears independent citizens capable of caring for and protecting themselves. Self reliant citizens would not need corrupt thieves stealing the wealth of rightful owners and giving it to their constituencies of beggars, slackers and other useless eaters. And we would not need to vote for such a class of two-legged swine.

How many were killed by cigarettes? Alcohol? AIDS? Car Accidents? Drug use? Suicide?

Approximately 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke each year.i According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 24,518 people died of alochol,ii 17,774 died of AIDS,iii 34,485 died of car accidents, 39,147 died of drug use — legal and illegal — 16,799 died of murder and 36,909 died of suicide in 2009.ii

Probably nothing to worry about, and hopefully the personalized locker keys keep things fair. That said, as a competitive shooter I always want to have my gun with me in the hotel room the night before a match. Disassembling, cleaning, and lubricating the gun perfectly the night before a match makes me feel more confident about my equipment. Having to hand my weapon over to a representative of a competing nation would feel downright wrong.

Actually Jamilla, there really is no such thing as "gun violence" . My guns have sat in my safe for years and have yet to commit a smidgen of violence. People commit the violence. The gun is only a tool.

And yes everybody readily agrees the majority of deaths with firearms are suicides. It's usually the left that ignores that statistic. So? If they don't use a gun they will just use something else. Japan has a much higher suicide rate with very strict gun control.

If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will do it, with or without a firearm.

Again, most gun violence deaths in America are suicides. The people most likely to commit suicide are middle aged or older white men, you guys' own demographic. There was an article about that right here at the WSJ about this fact not that long ago. I suspect many of you avoided it.

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